GroshLink

Is there anyone who is a devout lover of God?
Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!
Is there anyone who is a grateful servant?
Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!

Amen!  May it be so as we by the power of the Spirit live in the light of the resurrection day-by-day.  Take some time today to reflect upon this stirring message by John Chrysostom (349-407), read every Easter by Eastern Orthodox churches across the world.  FYI:  Link laying out the celebration of Holy Week by the Eastern Orthodox.

 
(note:  pic originally sent by The Transforming Center)

The resurrection of Jesus is the ultimate energizing for the new future.  The wrenching of Friday had left only the despair of Saturday, and the disciples had no reason to expect Sunday after that Friday.  The resurrection cannot be explained on the basis of the previously existing reality.  The resurrection can only be received and affirmed and celebrated as the new action of God, whose province is to create new futures for people and to let them be amazed in the midst of despair.

Walter Brueggemann
The Prophetic Imagination

posted by http://www.cultureisnotoptional.com/, free on-line archives

In addition to rejoicing in the resurrection and being edified by the testimony of Francis Collins which I passed along earlier, how about reading Living with Islamists or taking the religious literacy quiz over your Easter meal (watch out Groshes . . . we'll see who keeps up with my blog and isn't surprised by the quiz tomorrow afternoon)?

By-the-way, the author of the religious literacy quiz, Stephen Prothero is all over the media. We saw him in a recent PBS Special on Aimee Semple McPherson, which we watched with some interruptions by the NCAA Basketball Finals between Ohio State and Florida. He has a whole page focused on the media attention given to his research . . . what a new era for public intellectuals from the university!

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Came across the below pic/text at Defy the Gray. Speaks for itself on this in between day.

 

"I wish you knew today what would bring you peace."

"But now it is hidden from you."

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

On this day, Good Friday, take some time to pray through and consider the the whole hymn. I have enjoyed hearing back from so many which have seen Amazing Grace.  Theresa would like to go while its still in the theatre, looking for an opportunity for a night out together. While going through old mail I found this in an email from Mars Hill Audio, You've Seen the Movie; Now Hear the Bio:

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Collins receives another opportunity to share, pass this link along to your friends as an Easter gift:  Collins: Why this scientist believes in God . . .

I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views. As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan.

I did not always embrace these perspectives. As a graduate student in physical chemistry in the 1970s, I was an atheist, finding no reason to postulate the existence of any truths outside of mathematics, physics and chemistry. But then I went to medical school, and encountered life and death issues at the bedsides of my patients. Challenged by one of those patients, who asked "What do you believe, doctor?", I began searching for answers.

Note: CNN video interview of Collins.

Thank-you for passing this along Gene! Other groshlink.net posts regarding Collins include:

Language of God
God vs. Science
Not Too Simply Christian

Have I mentioned the Pontificator to you? [note: the site appears to now be down, but the archives, e.g., the link given for Holy Week still functioning] Take some to meditate upon the quotes given as part of the Holy Week series

 

How precious the gift of the cross, how splendid to contemplate! In the cross there is no mingling of good and evil, as in the tree of paradise: it is wholly beautiful to behold and good to taste. The fruit of this tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. This tree does not cast us out of paradise, but opens the way for our return.

This was the tree on which Christ, like a king on a chariot, destroyed the devil, the lord of death, and freed the human race from his tyranny. This was the tree upon which the Lord like a brave warrior wounded in hands, feet and side, healed the wounds of sin that the evil serpent had inflicted on our nature. A tree once caused our death, but now a tree brings life. Once deceived by a tree, we have now repelled the cunning serpent by a tree. What an astonishing transformation! . . . -- St Theodore the Studite (758-826)

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If you were an alum of William and Mary would you sign the http://www.savethewrencross.org/ petition and/or withhold money for the removal of the cross (note:  if you are a William and Mary alum did you sign the petition)?  Quite a fascinating news item with the cross returning under glass, noting it as a gift to the school with a unique Anglican heritage.  I found William & Mary’s Chapel at a Crossroad an excellent consideration of the situation.

Interestingly enough Pitt was a downtown Presbyterian log cabin college, what money can do in moving the campus to Oakland and the Cathedral of Learning.  The building of the large nondenominational (but clearly Christian influenced) Heinz Chapel came from the money of the founder of Heinz, an advocate for Methodism and the YMCA (note: his son a strong Presbyterian who attended Shadyside Presbyterian).  Pitt secularized over time, but due to its bailout several decades ago it is a public institution.  With the stained glass and neo-gothic architecture, the desacrilization is much more difficult than at Wm & Mary, it serves as the space for weddings, concerts, and various special events.  If you're the alum of a college with religious roots, where would you place your alma mater on a spectrum of embracing its heritage, acknowledging its heritage but moving in a new direction, covering up its heritage, or disowning its heritage?  Nothing like the scandal of the cross.

Over the centuries, Christians have grown adept at finding ways to disincarnate the religion, resisting the scandalous notion that what is holy can have much to do with the muck and smell of a stable, the painful agony of death on a cross.  The Incarnation remains a scandal to anyone who wants religion to be a purely spiritual matter, an etherized, bloodless bliss.  It remains a scandal to Christians who fear and despise the human body, or those who want to hear only of a Jesus who is  all-knowing, all-powerful--surely not the human being of Matthew or Mark, subject to temptation and ordinary emotions such as irritation and weariness.

Kathleen Norris
Amazing Grace

posted by http://www.cultureisnotoptional.com/

Faith and Mathematics (Geoff Atkinson, 10/01)

Note: written for the Graduate Christian Fellowship's (GCF) vocation project (VP).  Now that the GCF site has been taken down, over time I'll post the pieces for your blessing.  Thank-you to all the alum who participated in this work.  Alumni friends, I would love to have to hear your current thoughts on your vocation.  Maybe we can have that conversation at the alumni reunion on April 21.  We'll have a 9am breakfast at the Seigfrieds, a 1pm reception most probably at the Adamson Wing, and an evening opportunity yet to be confirmed.  Email me for more details.  Current GCF activities can be found at http://www.u-connectpgh.org

What is truth? Are there any absolute truths? How can I determine whether or not something is true, and how can I convince a skeptic? Traditionally religion and mathematics have been prime hunting grounds for truth, and at first glance the mathematicians seem to have had more success in finding it, and convincing others that they have found it. Consider, as an example, the following two claims:

1. In isosceles triangles the angles at the base are equal to one another.
2. I [Jesus] am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

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I came across this Palm Sunday reflection by Chip Stam, Director, Institute for Christian Worship, stirred by Samuel Crossman's (c. 1624-1683) My Song Is Love Unknown  It is so chilling and humbling for me to imagine myself as a part of the Jerusalem crowd that so easily waved their palm branches and shouted glorious praises to Jesus, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”; and then to realize that my fickle friends and I would be calling for his death a few short days later. This hurts! “No story so divine.” May I invite you to read the poem again, and notice the poet’s posture of worship in the final stanza.

Father, When I find myself in the wilderness (facing difficult circumstances as an individual or a member of the masses) grant me the grace to remember and give praise for your work through the ages, by/in your people, in the humble life/work/death of your Son, by the Presence of your Spirit, and deep within my own life. When I grumble not just in the difficult circumstances, but in my daily life like the Israelites in the wilderness, bring me to confession of my sin.  By your Spirit enable me to cast Satan from my presence and acknowledge you alone are to be worshipped, your grace alone provides the avenue and strength for the next step of the journey.  Each second of every day remind me that I am receiving your powerful, transformative, gracious work enabling me to live by faith in your promises with a glimpse of how you will complete the good work you began in creation and continued to be about in spite of the fall; responded to by your call of a people, the incarnation of His Son, and the gift of the Spirit to His People. Come Lord, come quickly! We look with eager expectation to the new heaven and new earth.  In the name of your Son Jesus who humbly gave His all for your creation and your people, Amen.